Global Carbon Emissions Keep Increasing

(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — The world this year pumped 1.1% more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than last year because of increased pollution from China and India, a team of scientists reported. The increase was reported early Tuesday at international climate talks, where global officials are trying to cut emissions by 43% by 2030. Instead, carbon pollution keeps rising, with 36.8 billion metric tons poured into the air in 2023, twice the annual amount of 40 years ago, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of international scientists who produce the gold standard of emissions counting. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5 (degree Celsius, 2.7 degree Fahrenheit) target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2 (degree Celsius, 3.6 degree Fahrenheit) target alive,’’ study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter said. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is “just possible’’ but only barely and with massive emission cuts, said Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman Jim Skea. “We are clearly not going in the right direction,” Friedlingstein said. This year, the burning of fossil fuel and manufacturing of cement have added the equivalent of putting 2.57 million pounds (1.17 million kilograms) of carbon dioxide into the atm...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news